


static noise

by cmajorchords



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Child Abuse, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 01:36:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1450471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cmajorchords/pseuds/cmajorchords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her brother is the only world she's ever known, which is probably why the only thing she wants is to kill their father, and also why she falls in love with the worst person and somehow manages to make it work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. blank channels

**Author's Note:**

> the what-if scenario that has been playing in my mind since City of Fallen Angels, the way i imagine things would have played out if Clary had grown up with Jonathan.

**i. blank channels**

She turns the volume up louder and louder on her headphones, but nothing blocks out the images in her head anyway. The sketchpad set on her knees, folded up in front of her, is still blank, and the hand holding her charcoal pencil is shaking, ever so slightly. She can’t hear a thing through the blaring bass beats of the music pounding through her ears, but her imagination has always been vivid, and it’s not like she hasn’t got base material to work with in the first place.

No, she’s spent more than enough time over the fourteen years of her life so far patching up her brother, time and time again, after his training sessions with their father. Except this one isn’t a training session – if it were, she’d be sitting pressed against the wall of the warded room, and Unseen rune carved into her skin, ready to create a commotion of needed.

No, this is not a training session. It’s a punishment, which is why she’s stuffed in the very smallest corner of her room, trying her desperate best to block out whatever is happening downstairs, at this very moment.

Sometimes she wishes she could take her brother’s place. If only once, or twice, during their father’s rages, she wishes she were the one downstairs submitting to the whip or the swords or the terrifying, almost seductive torture devices in abundance within this mansion, not her brother. But she looks too much like their lost mother for her father to ever raises a finger at her, and her brother looks too much like himself not to.

There are five light taps on the door, the rhythm her brother had taught her when they were very, very young, stars still in their eyes and an omnipresent future in front of them, and the sketchpad clatters to the floor from where she’d stood up too suddenly. She swallows, but strides across her room in a half-sprint before yanking open the door.

Her brother stands in front of her, leaning against the doorjamb weakly, sweat plastering his silvery hair to his forehead. There is absolutely no color in his eyes, and when she moves back to let him step inside, he sways on his feet.

“Jonathan,” she breathes, horrified, even as she takes her brother’s elbow and steers him to the bed. “Where is it this time?”

“You’re going to have to help me, I’m afraid,” Jonathan whispers back, and she gently sits him down on the edge of her bed. She swallows as she catches sight of the bloody strips that were once his shirt on his back, and tugs at the hem of it experimentally. It won’t budge.

“I think I’m going to have to cut it off,” she tells him, and her voice comes out steady through it all. Now is not the time to fall apart, not when Jonathan needs her.

Jonathan half-smiles at her and pats her lightly on the cheek. His palm is sweaty, and cold, and she fears what blood loss might to do him now, especially without an _iratze_. Their father doesn’t allow healing runes, not where his punitive measures are concerned. “I never liked this shirt anyway.”

She swallows again, resisting her gag reflex, the bile rising in her throat. Moving over to her closet, she yanks open her weapons drawer and removes a small, flimsy-looking dagger, easily hidden in holsters on her body. The blade is polished as clearly as a mirror, and she sees her own inexorable horror reflected back at her as she works the tip methodically along the edge of his shirt, slicing off segments at a time in order to reveal is bloody, gushing wounds.

The wounds are stripes along his back, like a flag, claiming their father’s ownership. She pushes Jonathan down to lie on his stomach, but he twists his head to look back at her and his mouth falls open in  silent surprise, as he lifts himself up on an elbow and uses his free hand to wipe along her cheeks. “Don’t cry, Clary,” he murmurs, and his expression is tender, too tender for the amount of pain he must be in. “Crying doesn’t do anyone any good, least of all me.”

“I’m not crying,” Clary replies obstinately, leaning away from his hand to wipe her own cheeks, with an air of finality. She won’t cry, not when Jonathan isn’t. She doesn’t deserve to. She peels away the rest of his shirt, and lets the rags fall into a stained heap on her carpet. Stumbling over to the tiny metal box hidden beneath her desk, she carves an intricate pattern on the lid with the stele at her belt, emerging with a large roll of pristine white bandages, a package of sterilized gauze, a needle, some thread, and acidic medicine.

“You’re too good to me, little sister,” Jonathan tells her, as she sets up her materials on the bed and goes to wet a few towels to wipe off the blood.

“You’re only trying to cheer me up now.”

“A face as beautiful as yours shouldn’t be twisted into this kind of expression.” He tugs at the corners of her lips, but she won’t smile for him. Not like this, when he’s the one cheering her up when she should be doing that for him.

“Lie still, or else you’re going to open up the wounds again.” Clary sits down on the bed next to him, damp towels bunched around a hand, and begins lightly dabbing and wiping in turns at his back, avoiding pushing or pulling at the damaged flesh. When most of the blood has stained off his skin and onto the towels, she sets the ruined towels aside, as well, and grimaces at the long gashes revealed.

“It needs stitching, doesn’t it?”

“I can give you a numbing rune,” Clary says, but she knows it’s a futile effort. As much as Jonathan hates their father, he will not disrespect him in this way. No runes mean no runes, pain or no.

“Clary.”

“It’s going to hurt like a motherfucker,” Clary tells him, instead.

Jonathan gives her that half-smile again. “Ladies don’t swear, little sister.”

She pushes the thread into the needle and begins, her hand steady. The first stitch goes in smoothly, and she can see the muscles in his shoulder and arms flex, then relax, flex again, relax, an involuntary reaction. But he’s gone through this so many times already it’s like a numbing rune all of its own. Clary knows that if it were her lying on his bed, she’d probably have blacked out from the pain already, and can’t help but be proud of her brother.

“We’re going to leave here someday, right, Jonathan?”

“As soon as we can,” Jonathan promises without hesitation, his voice low, and then he pauses. “Tomorrow.”

Her hand stops, suddenly, hovering in midair, before she realizes what she’s doing and goes back to sewing. She breaks off the thread when the first gash is closed, and moves on to the second. He hardly reacts, although the burning sensation has to be setting in now, the adrenaline within his body wearing off. “Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Jonathan whispers, and the smile that lights up her face is celestial in its brilliance.

* * *

Jonathan helps her pack her things after she applies medicine and bandages onto his wounds, and she takes only her barest essentials: a change of clothes, her sketchbook, several weapons, a few steles just in case she loses her favorite. Then she shoulders the backpack and carves a rune into its side for weightlessness, and Jonathan takes her hand and leads her into his room.

“Sleep here tonight,” he tells her, his eyes serious and dark, and she nods. “We’ll wake at dawn tomorrow. Father will be elsewhere, and we’re going to break the wards and run.”

“Where are we going?” she cannot help but ask, and watches as shadows break across her brother’s face.

“The Institute. I know we’re in New York somewhere, and there’s an Institute there that the Lightwood family is in charge of. I just don’t know how to get there, or how far away it is, or what will happen to us once we go there just because we’re Valentine’s children. Are you willing to take that risk, Clarissa?”

Her brother only calls her Clarissa when he’s absolutely, completely serious. She knows this is no laughing matter, but she’ll follow Jonathan to the ends of the world if needs be, so she nods tightly. “Where is Father going?”

“Recruitment. He broke the wards near Alcatraz last night just before he got back, and the demons are pouring in. Someone has to be there to welcome them, after all.”

“And how are we going to disable the wards without him noticing?”

“We’re not,” Jonathan says, and there’s something like humor in his voice. “We’re going to disable them, and run, and hope it gives us enough of a head start to get to the Institute before he comes after us.”

“This isn’t sounding like much of a plan at all.”

“That’s because it’s not.” Jonathan sits down heavily on the bed, and she sits next to him as well, letting him wrap an arm around her waist and drop a soft, gentle kiss on top of her head. “I just can’t stand another day in the same house as him. Can you?”

And this answer does not require any thinking at all, so she simply shakes her head and curls tighter into her brother’s side. Even if it’s not much of a plan, she wants to be safe, and above all else, she wants her brother to be safe. She trusts him implicitly, and nothing’s going to change even with her life weighing in the balance.

Life with their father is not a life at all, after all.

* * *

 

She’s roused in the morning by a sharp shaking of her shoulder, and she blinks blearily up at Jonathan, his face tight and taut with tension and anxiety, and immediately wakes up. She sits up, grabbing automatically for the stele and dagger always at her side, and looks around. “What’s wrong?”

“Father just left through a Portal,” Jonathan tells her, and there’s something very much akin to exhilaration in voice now, as well as nervousness. “We’re leaving.”

So she grabs her backpack, and does just that. 

* * *

 

In retrospect, their escape was probably a lot easier than they’d expected it to be. The wards fry anything that passes through its boundaries without it first being disabled, so they kill everyone in the house save one servant, who shakily tells them the sequence of runes to bring the wards falling down. Then Jonathan slides his blade, already stained with crimson, right up through the base of his spine and he falls to the floor, dead.

“Clary,” Jonathan says, but Clary’s already stepping to the wall and etching the ancient symbols into the air with her stele, and a moment later, they all feel the backlash of energy as the protection around them falls.

“Run?” Clary suggests, and Jonathan grabs her hand tight in his and runs.

* * *

 

There’s nowhere to hide in New York, but their mansion has never been anything but magical, so they find themselves stepping right out into a crowd of people who don’t spare a single glance at them, staring at some sort of glowing device in their hands or talking into a little square held at their ear. Clary has never seen so many people in a single place before, and for a moment, she’s lost, and the only thing grounding her is her brother’s hand around hers, tugging her forwards.

“Come on, come on, come on,” Jonathan mutters, like a mantra or a curse, as they push through the throngs of sweaty bodies and lose themselves in the anonymity of the crowd. Their hands remain joined, and Clary stuffs her stele back into her belt, for easy access, knowing that the glamour would protect its presence from all the surrounding mundanes.

“How are we going to find the Institute?” she wonders aloud, because New York has never seemed to big.

“We follow the Shadowhunters,” Jonathan tells her grimly, and she frowns at him, confused, for a second, before he points forward into the crowd. “We have to hurry before Father sends demons after us. Only the wards of the Institute will protect against that, and they _have_ to offer sanctuary to anyone in need.”

“What – ” she begins, confused, before she sees the glint of a stele at the belt of a boy, golden-haired and not much older than they, and her mouth falls agape. There’s a steely-looking expression on the boy’s face, serious and dangerous.

Jonathan holds his ground, and doesn’t let go of her hand. In fact, his grip tightens, and he subtly rearranges his body so that Clary’s half-hidden behind him. Clary tries not to feel annoyed at this blatant show of chauvinism, telling herself he’s just trying to protect her.

“We sensed Portal activity here, not five minutes ago,” the boy tells him, and somehow, even though he’s still at least ten feet away, his voice carries easily. Nobody around them notices, for some reason. “Did you two come through from Idris?”

“Not exactly,” Jonathan hedges, his eyes narrowed and calculating. “Are you of the New York Institute?”

“Jace Wayland, at your service,” the boy tells them almost flippantly, but there’s no sign of easy-going humor in his eyes when they sweep over Jonathan and then Clary, only single-minded determination. “And who might you be?”

Clary feels Jonathan draw himself up, squaring his shoulders, preparing for the worst. “My name is Jonathan Morgenstern. And this is my little sister, Clarissa Morgenstern.”

* * *

 

Apparently Jonathan was right to prepare for the worst, because the moment the words are out of his mouth, the boy flashes into action, faster than Clary has ever trained for before. He has a knife up to Jonathan’s throat in one second and an arm locked around his neck in another, but he’s overlooked Clary, and she reacts on instincts ingrained into her since young. She yanks at his shoulder and reaches around to press the boy’s – Jace’s arm behind his back, twisting his wrist so that the knife clatters from his grasp, forcing him away from her brother, and Jonathan’s with her in the next moment with his own blade.

“We don’t mean any harm,” Clary tells Jace, wondering if he would believe her. “We escaped from our father. We – just wanted to get somewhere safe.”

“Safe?” Jace’s eyes are incredulous, and they show no sign of fear even when he’s on his knees in front of two perceived enemies, a dagger drawing a thin crimson line along the vulnerable, exposed skin of his throat. “And you choose to come to the Institute, when your last names are _Morgenstern_?”

Jonathan’s mouth twists into a wry smile. “Is there anywhere else safe from the hoardes of demons at our father’s disposal that he will no doubt send out in search of us?”

“I should just kill you both here and send your bodies back to Valentine.”

Jonathan gestures at their positions. “You seem to be a bit at a disadvantage here, Wayland.”

“I have backup coming.”

“No, you don’t,” Clary interrupts, before her brother can. Her heart is hammering a rapid, hummingbird beat in her chest, but she knows she’s right. “You were sent from the Institute to investigate, but anyone using a Portal should be friendlies. Your friends weren’t expecting us. You’re alone, and you’ve got no way of calling for backup.”

Jace holds her gaze for a long while, and Clary holds her breath. “I seem to be a bit at a disadvantage here,” he says, and his eyes dart to Jonathan’s. “Look, I’ll make you a deal. Take all my weapons. I’ve got no chance trying to beat you in battle anyway. I’ll take you back to the Institute, where you’ll be at our mercy – but you shouldn’t be in any danger anyway, if what you said is true, that you come in peace.”

“We come _for_ peace,” Clary murmurs, and a squeeze of her shoulder from Jonathan makes her rise to her feet and let go of Jace. Jonathan pats Jace down, removing the myriad of weaponry concealed upon him, and then Jace nods at the street that stretches out in front of them, his expression unreadable.

“After you.” 

* * *

 

The Institute is nothing like she’d expected, and then some. They step right through the wards with no problem at all – after all, they are all blood Shadowhunters, even if they’re the only Morgensterns of their generation – and are greeted by a loud, feminine voice shouting from some room off to the side of the entrance room.

“Jace, what did –”

“Izzy,” Jace cuts in, and he doesn’t take his eyes off the two of them even as he calls his reply. “I’ve got Jonathan and Clarissa Morgenstern.”

“You’re –” A stunningly beautiful, tall, dark-haired girl appears at the doorway, her hair piled messily on top of her head, a wooden spoon in her hand. She blinks, does a double take at the two of them. “ – not kidding.”

“Unfortunately not,” Jace says, with just enough wry amusement to make Clary want to laugh.

“I’m – going to get Mom and Dad,” Izzy chokes out, and darts away.

“Isabelle Lightwood,” Jonathan says aloud, more for Clary’s benefit than his own. “Daughter of Maryse and Robert Lightwood, keepers of the New York Institute. Younger sister to Alexander Lightwood, who is _parabatai_ to Jace Wayland.”

“You’ve certainly done your research,” Jace says, and nods at the doorway in which Isabelle had appeared. “Look, you say you come in peace. Maryse and Robert will probably want to lock you up in shackles and chains the moment they see you, so why don’t we set the friendly atmosphere a little and go grab a little something to eat? Discussions always go better on a full stomach, don’t you think?”

“I’d rather not be poisoned, thank you.”

“The only thing poisonous in that kitchen is Isabelle’s cooking. You’ll be safe.” Jace looks at them a little, before turning away and heading towards the kitchen. “You say you come in goodwill. The one thing we can do before we lock you up is offer you some goodwill in return, right?”

Clary’s stomach grumbles in betrayal, and Jace’s grin flashes as he rounds the corner and disappears. Jonathan gives her a look, but sighs and steps after Jace anyway. 

* * *

 

They spoon cold spaghetti out from a Tupperware container onto plates, and are eating quietly when two adults come charging in like the house is on fire, their eyes wide and frightened. When they see the picture Jonathan and Clary make, eating spaghetti with plastic forks because all the real ones were in the dishwasher, incongruous with the image they have in their heads of what the children of Valentine should be, they stop short.

“Jonathan Morgenstern, pleased to make your acquaintance,” Jonathan says, when it becomes clear no one else is going to make a move. “You must be Robert and Maryse Lightwood. This is my sister, Clarissa Morgenstern.”

“Valentine’s children,” Robert says, his voice carefully devoid of emotion.

Jonathan raises his hands in a vaguely surrendering motion. “As you can see, I am completely free of weapons. If you want to check both me and my sister over, then you are more than welcome to it. We want to show that we come in peace.”

“Why?”

“Because you don’t know my father, but we do,” Clary says, and her voice comes out strong enough to surprise her brother, who half-turns to give her a startled look. “If you’ll provide us sanctuary against him, we’ll gladly provide you with whatever you wish to know about him.”

Jace pushes back from the table, so abruptly his chair screeches noisily as its scratches against the linoleum. “You’ll abandon your father?” he demands, and his eyes blazes with a kind of fire that makes Clary wonder what sort of childhood he’d had, and if had been anything like hers. “Just like that?”

Jonathan turns cold, silvery eyes to Jace, and the expression on his face is somber and chilling, all at once. “You don’t know our father,” he repeats, parroting Clary’s words from before. “You don’t know what he’s capable of. But we do.”

“What has he done to the two of you?” Maryse blurts, her eyes wide but calculating, all at once, and Jonathan’s own flashes in reply as he turns his attention back to the two adults in the room.

“Nothing you need to know.”

“Are you going to help us or not?” Clary asks, exasperated at this constant back-and-forth. “Because if you aren’t, then Jonathan and I will probably have to Portal to another –”

“Hold up,” Isabelle interrupts, holding up a hand, her beautiful face scrunched into confusion. “You came to New York by Portal, right? And now you’re saying you’re going to have to Portal away – but that doesn’t work like that. People don’t just … _Portal_.”

Clary swallows nervously. Jonathan, however, only lets a ghost of a smile flicker past his lips. “My sister can. We can do a lot of things you can’t, you’ll find.”

“You can draw Portals? Out of thin air? Without a warlock present?” Isabelle asks incredulously, but her father lays a heavy hand on her shoulder and she shuts her mouth immediately, looking chagrined.

“In answer to your offer, yes,” Robert tells them seriously, ignoring a look from his wife. “We’ll provide you with shelter and protection for as long as you need it, in exchange for information. But, before we make this irrevocable – can you two promise that if the time comes, you’ll be able to fight against your father? To betray him with your whole heart, and not look back?”

“I’ve waited fourteen years to rescue my sister from the poisonous shadow of our father,” Jonathan says. “As long as you keep your word, I’ll keep mine.”


	2. fireworks in the sky, rattling deep

**ii. fireworks in the sky, rattling deep**

Clary wraps her jacket tight around herself, protection against the cold, the fingers clutched around the pencil hovering over her sketchbook almost frozen numb. She’s not dressed for the cold at all, used for the controlled temperatures of her father’s magical mansion – she only has summery clothes, and here, in New York, in the middle of the autumn months, it’s practically freezing. Still, she climbs up here on top of the roof of the Institute every day anyway, when the Lightwoods and her brother are in one of their meetings, discussing their father.

She’s never been allowed into one of those meetings yet, but then again, she isn’t really sure she even wants to anyway.

“Morgenstern.”

She spins around, dagger in her hand in a single instant, before she finds Jace Wayland clambering up the roof towards her. When he spies her weapon, he holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender, eyebrows arched. “I come in peace?”

Clary stows the dagger away with no little amount of suspicion, but she knows that although she’d taken Jace by surprise the day before, she’s under no illusion as to who would win in this kind of fight. She’ll take whatever truce she can. “Aren’t you supposed to be in a meeting?”

“Nah. I’m more of a do-it-now-regret-things-horribly-later sort of person,” Jace replies dismissively, and sits down exaggeratedly slowly next to her, a safe distance away. “What have you got there, then?”

Instinctively, Clary pulls her hand over the page of her sketchbook. Her drawings are private; even the easels displaying finished and in-progress work in her bedroom back in the mansion are covered, and Jonathan knows better than to touch them or come in during a middle of a painting session. “Nothing.”

“Oh, come on, don’t be like that,” Jace complains good-naturedly, and reaches forward. She pulls back automatically, her eyes wide and frightened, her stance prepared for a very different sort of movement – and Jace moves back, like he knows he’s crossed a very important boundary.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he tells her, a bit quieter now. “I just – you’re different. From any other girl I’ve ever met, even without your being a Morgenstern and all. I just wanted to get to know you a little, and it’s okay if you don’t want to show me your drawings, but – talk to me?”

“You could push me off this roof faster than I could say a single word,” she says, but it’s without conviction, because this blond-haired golden-eyed angel is also like no other she’s ever seen before.

He smiles. “But I’m not going to. And you know that, too.”

Slowly, very slowly, each movement measured and on guard, she snaps the sketchbook closed and tucks it into her jacket. “I knew your father,” she says, and it’s obviously not a very good place to start, because his eyes darken.

“I know you did,” he replies evenly. “Your father killed him.”

“It was the first murder I witnessed,” she continues recklessly, because if this doesn’t scare him away, then nothing else in this world will. “My brother was there as well.”

“Your father wanted to teach the both of you a lesson?” he asks, and there’s a hint of irony in his voice that suggests he’s trying desperately not to care.

“He wanted to show us that all lives could end. He wanted to show us that no matter how strong a man, death will always triumph.”

“My father didn’t do anything wrong.”

She turns to him, and there’s nothing but a sad sort of firmness in his eyes so she looks away again. “Neither have me and my brother, and yet when you hear the name Morgenstern, the first word you think of is _evil_ ,” she replies softly, and he jerks upwards suddenly, like he hadn’t realized this to be true until she’d said it aloud.

“Tell me,” Jace says suddenly, after a pause filled only by the howling of the brutal wind. “Do you love your brother?”

Clary smiles. “Don’t I have to?”

“Would you believe me if I said you didn’t?”

She considers for a while, her hand drawing indeterminable patterns along the hard cover of her sketchbook. “My brother is my world,” she says. “He’s protected me from our father my entire life, at the expense of himself. He objects to Valentine even more than you do.”

“I suppose not,” Jace mutters to himself. “Would you at least tell me what you were drawing?”

“New York City, as I’ve never seen it before,” Clary says, and gestures out at the skyline that lies before the two of them like the world at their feet.

“Oh, right. You’ve been under unofficial house arrest your entire life.”

“It was to protect us from the likes of you.”

“And now you run to us for help?”

Clary looks straight at Jace, and sees nothing but the contempt for her name in his eyes. “Trust me, if there were anywhere else to go, we’d be there and not here.” 

* * *

 

It seems like Clary and Jonathan will be under unofficial house arrest for the undeterminable future as well, in the Institute. Jonathan’s in meetings and probably endless interrogations for most of the days, so Clary spends hers stuck in her room, getting charcoal everywhere. Jace, when he goes up to call to her to a takeaway lunch one day, blinks at the pages of endless abandoned sketches all over the floor but says nothing.

The next day, she finds a set of expensive oil paints and a large, professional easel waiting for her in front of her room. She has no doubts as to who had bought them for her, and makes a point to thank Jace in front of everybody else at dinner.

“You’re welcome,” he says, with a smirk she’s come to get used to, and Isabelle stares at them suspiciously but doesn’t say anything.

“When will I get to see my brother?” she asks one day, over cold spaghetti that actually tastes surprisingly good seeing as how Isabelle had been the one to make it earlier that day.

“When he’s proven his loyalty,” Alec replies frostily. Clary recalls the bloody gaping wounds across her brother’s back, and realizes that loyalty is a common language. 

“Don’t I have to prove my loyalty as well?”

Alec’s mouth twists into something horrible. “You wouldn’t survive half a day.”

“Alec,” Jace snaps disapprovingly.

Alec’s mouth mashes into a thin line. “You’re such a fucking hypocrite,” he snarls, shoves his chair back so hard it falls to the floor, and storms out of the kitchen.

Clary stares at his rapidly retreating back, and looks back at the others at the table. Isabelle is still calming dishing up her spaghetti. Jace stuffs a forkful into his mouth. “Don’t mind him,” he manages around the food. “This is just how he always is.”

Clary highly doubts that, and looks down at her barely touched food. “I don’t think I’m very hungry anymore,” she says, and backs away to escape to her temporary room.

* * *

 

“Have you always drawn?”

Clary barely spares a glance at her back, even as she hastily slings a tarp over her current easel. “A bit of knocking would be nice,” she says mildly.

“Yes, well, the door was open.” There’s a pause, and then the soft click of the door shutting behind him. Clary’s heart skips a beat, and she casually fondles the handle of her dagger hanging from her jeans.

“What do you want?”

“Let’s go outside,” Jace says simply, and she spins around sharply to face him.

“Aren’t I under house arrest?”

“Maryse and Robot are out in the Silent City with your brother. Isabella and Alec are out hunting. Who’s going to know?”

“I –”

He grins, defiantly, fiercely, his eyes almost seeming to glow. “Where’s your spirit of adventure?”

Dead and buried, she thinks, but sighs and reaches into her closet. It’s cold both outside and inside, so she’s already wrapped in two sweaters and a large, fluffy scarf that was the result of being stuck inside too long with nothing much to amuse herself with, but she grabs a large woolen coat just in case. She has a cloak made of pure black fur that is much warmer, but she’s noticed people here don’t wear cloaks much, and she isn’t in the mood to be stared at.

“Ready to go?”

“Sure,” she sighs, and braces herself when she takes the arm Jace offers her.

* * *

 

They take a walk through the city.

It’s a surprisingly normal walk, really, although she hadn’t known what she’d been expecting. He takes her around to all the normal New York highlights – Central Park, a glimpse of the Empire State Building, frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity’s despite the positively freezing weather. Then, he takes her hand and leads her into the Museum of Modern Arts, and she’s surprised at the warmth his hand provides.

There’s art and sculpture and paintings everywhere, and she’s entranced by it all, because she’s never seen these things before, hadn’t even heard of them.

“I thought you’d like it,” he sighs, as though a little exasperated at her enthusiasm, as she drags him into their fifth gallery. “Your father’s kept the both of you a little more sheltered than the average teenager, after all.”

She snorts at the understatement of the century, and leads him on.

* * *

 

“Thanks for today, Jace. It was –”

“The best day of your life?”

“- enlightening, I would say. But it was nice to –”

“Clarissa?”

Clary spins around at the familiar voice, and finds the door to her room half-ajar, her brother settled on the edge of her bed. Her eyes widen and her feet are moving before she’s even aware of making the decision to do so, sprinting forwards, flinging her into the safe embrace of her brother’s arms, sobbing and crying and blubbering incomprehensively.

“Hey, hey,” Jonathan laughs, but his hands are soothing as they rub up and down her back, his hold tight and everlasting. “Did you miss me?”

“You idiot!” she wails, and Jonathan hugs her harder. Through her tears, she can hear the sound of her door closing, of Jace leaving, but her brother is her here and now and her world forever, so that hardly matters.

* * *

 

“You’ve been keeping yourself busy, little sister.”

She glances around at the covered half-finished pieces littered around her room, the crumpled-up discarded sketches clogging up her bin. “I had to have something to do. What did they do to you – up there?”

Jonathan gives her a wan smile. “I recounted our entire childhood, while holding the Mortal Sword. It was unpleasant. There was a lot of staring.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Several of the mothers came up to me afterward, offered the both of us shelter after I swore my loyalty to the Clave and the Clave only, and promised my help in intelligence and the fight against our father.”

“Are you going to accept any of them?” Clary absentmindedly plays with the pencil stuck behind her ear, knowing she’d have to go along with whatever her brother decides.

“I think our safest bet is to stay with the Institute right now. This is consecrated ground, after all. Whatever Father decides to send will never be able to get past its borders.”

“And then what?”

“And then we’ll fight against our father, and win, and eventually I’ll take you someplace safe where we’ll never, ever have to worry again, little sister. This I promise you.”

Clary looks at her brother’s eyes, determined and glowing with the sort of fire she’d come to associate with ambition, and nods. “I believe you,” she says, and pauses. “So the rest of our foreseeable future will be with the Lightwoods?”

“The rest of our foreseeable future will be each other,” Jonathan promises, and Clary doesn’t doubt that, either.

* * *

 

And so the fight continues, and Clary looks at the paintings on her easels and finds that they don’t mean much to her anymore. After her brother had sworn loyalty and finally allowed a room at the Institute, she’d been brought to the Silent City one morning and had the Silent Brothers ravage her mind to deem her loyalty.

And then she and her brother had been allowed free reign of the city, of the Institute’s rooms, and protection as granted to any other Shadowhunter.

She no longer needs Jace to escort her around, and although the threat of her father’s minions is still very much real, she finds she can’t stay still within the Institute much longer. Her brother is still in and out of meetings all day, and whatever free time he has left he’s training with Jace and Alec and Isabelle. The Lightwood children, however, steer clear of her for reasons unknown, and Jace is the only one to spare time for her, helping her recover the skills she’d learnt from her father.

“You’re good with a knife, and hand-to-hand combat,” Jace gasps one day, after she’s pinned him down the second time that day, in succession, and they’re both breathing and sweating hard.

“You should know that, after that first time we met,” she replies flippantly, stepping back so he can heave himself to his feet. “I thought you’d be better at this fighting gig, though.”

Something teasing flashes through his eyes. “I was just going easy on you. Don’t know what your puny little body can handle, you know? I don’t want to break you.”

She smiles, because she understands this game. She understands it’s something called “flirting”, which she’s learned from the various books she’d stolen out of Isabelle’s room, and doesn’t mind trying it out for herself. Besides, with Jace, it’s almost entertaining.

“How are you so sure I’m not the one breaking _you_?” she tosses right back at him, and Jace immediately straightens into an offensive stance, feet apart, dagger pointing outwards.

“Again,” he commands, and there’s a playful sort of fire in his eyes that gives her absolutely no qualms about flinging herself right at him again, fists out.

It’s a bit harder this time around, perhaps because Jace really is only going full-out now, perhaps because she’s getting a little bit tired of the repetition of the sparring. But something has changed, pulled away from the atmosphere; his eyes are intense and his movements quick and efficient, feinting and pulling away until they’re dancing, almost, rather than fighting.

She’s always been quicker and more agile on her feet than anyone else she’s ever known, though, and her shorter, smaller stature gives her the upper hand on almost any other opponent she faces. She ducks beneath his punches and spins around and around him, flying through his strikes, deflecting those she can’t avoid. She lashes out periodically with her dagger but it only sticks in his leather gear, and they’re both getting nowhere.

He knows it, too, and his eyes narrow in concentration before he kicks it all up a notch. His first strike comes unexpectedly as he grabs her wrist and spins her around to push her back into his chest, and draws blood in a thin line along the inside of her wrist. The adrenaline running through her body keeps the pain a mere niggling thought in the back of her brain, though, and she turns their new positions to her advantage, ducking down to tangle up his arms and spinning him around, attempting to kick in the back of his knees. He’s faster than that, though, rolling down and out of her reach, coming up fighting.

She expects his punches, though, and blocks them neatly, grabbing his hand and twisting it just so for the dagger to fall out of his hand and skitter along the floor, out of reach. Her mouth twists into triumph, as she raises her own dagger –

And he hooks an ankle around her leg, pulling sharply, and she tumbles hard to the floor. She rolls herself around, preparing to spring upward to hopefully take him by surprise, but he’s already expected it and pounced on top of her, knees pressed into the tops of her thighs and his hands like vises around her wrists, pinning her to the floor, her dagger useless.

They both stay like that for a little while, breathing hard, sweat dripping from the ends of his bangs.

“I –” Clary begins, unnerved at the sudden softness she sees in Jace’s eyes, but then he leans down and brushes his lips very, very gently along hers.

“Clarissa?”

Oh, shit. Clary struggles to sit up, but Jace’s hands are unrelenting, and she has to tilt her head up reluctantly to see their unexpected visitor.

“Brother –” she begins, but Jonathan has already turned his attention towards the elephant in the room.

“Jace Wayland,” he says in a very controlled, measured voice, like he’s struggling hard not to explode. “Would you kindly remove yourself from my little sister?”

Jace sits up and moves up off her, but excruciating slowly like he wants Jonathan to see he’s not submitting to him, not with this. Clary scrambles to her feet and away from Jace, towards the entrance, the moment he lets go, and is terrified at what she sees in her brother’s eyes.

“Clary,” Jonathan says, without looking at her. “Let’s go.”

“Jonathan –” she tries again, but Jonathan has already spun around and is marching out of the training room and down the darkened hall – she hadn’t realized how late it was getting, sparring with Jace – and she has no choice but to follow.

“I don’t ever want to see that again, little sister,” Jonathan says, and his voice are a frigid nuclear wasteland. He still hasn’t turned around, and she isn’t brave enough to walk up to him and see the expression on his face.

“There was nothing happening, Jonathan,” she protests, but her brother only snorts derisively.

“I won’t have you turn into another disposable whore like our mother, Clarissa,” he snarls, and she can hear the true worry beneath his ice and fire. “I – stay away from him, little sister. From all of them.”

“He doesn’t – ” And she cuts herself off abruptly, because there’s nothing she could say anyway, and they’re standing in front of her room. Jonathan turns and she holds her breath, but all he does is drop a kiss lightly on her forehead and spin around again.

“Sleep well, little sister.”

Clary touches her lips and her forehead, and wonders what kind of love one is supposed to value more.


	3. radio silence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, this took long enough. i am a useless piece of garbage and i apologize, but in other news, the final chapter will be up tomorrow. it's actually all written already, i've just sort of purposefully on accident forgot to edit. it's interesting to see how my writing style has changed in such a short span of time, though.

**iii. radio silence**

Things, as though taking its cue from Jonathan, kick up into high gear after that particular debacle. The Lightwoods are training in earnest now, taking control of the training room for most of the days, so she trains herself up on the roof, running through stances and Japanese katas all while practicing her balance and, occasionally, when she loses that, how to fall properly without hurting herself. This regime has led to more than one hospitalization, but no one particularly cares how the female scion of their mortal enemy spends her time, so nobody stops her.

She isn’t sure whether to be grateful or disappointed that Jonathan has been moved to Idris, now, to help in the planning of the full-scale launch attack at Valentine. She hadn’t been able to follow, and she purposely distances herself from Jace. It’s lonely, in this too-large New York Institute, and so she takes to spending her time outdoors.

There’s really no threat of her father sending monsters and minions out for her anymore. Both sides seem to be preparing for something larger than the world, larger than herself and Jonathan; she doesn’t mind, not really, if it keeps the spotlight off her and her brother.

She walks the streets of New York until she can navigate it all like a seasoned native. She takes to wearing her cloak around for the simple warmth, as well, and carves a glamour rune onto her arm so that people won’t stare. Sometimes she contemplates making a Portal to Idris to see Jonathan, but exposing her unnatural affinity for runes doesn’t seem like a good idea when she isn’t quite sure who are the good guys, yet.

“Where do you go, in the city?” Isabelle asks her idly one night, after she gets in a little earlier than usual due to the snowstorm starting up outside.

Clary pauses to slash through the invisibility rune on her arm to render it useless, and to undo her cloak from around her neck. “Nowhere much,” she responds, and cocks her head at the apron tied around Isabelle’s neck. “Dinner?”

“I’m making curry, if you haven’t already eaten.”

Clary realizes with a jolt that she hasn’t; food doesn’t seem to be very high on her list of priorities lately, and she subsides mainly on deli sandwiches and coffee. Coffee is a luxury she’s never been allowed to have, and she’s finding it very nice to be able to indulge, once in a while.

“I haven’t, no,” she agrees, and Isabelle eyes her narrowly before she slowly nods.

“Come on, then. You can help. The others say my cooking isn’t edible, let’s see what happens when you do it.”

“I’ve never cooked before in my life,” Clary protests, but the beautiful, deadly girl only leads her on inside.

So, they make curry. Alec and Jace come down from the training room, sweaty and exhausted, halfway through to see whether or not they should go ahead and order pizza to eat while the fire department puts out the inevitable chaos the kitchen would be in, and find the two girls working in harmony.

“What is this sorcery?” Jace asks, unnerved.

Isabella barely spares them a glance, her long wavy black hair swinging as she reaches upwards to grab bowls and cutlery from the cupboards. “Good, you two are just in time. Set the table, will you?”

There’s a pause, and Clary steadfastly does not look around, instead keeping her gaze on the slowly bubbling curry. It smells good, but she’s not entirely sure how it would taste; there had been a lot of guesswork and estimation used in the making of it, seeing as how neither Isabelle nor her had much experience in the kitchen.

“You want me to grab the Chinese takeout menu?” Alec asks in a low undertone, and Isabelle spins around and smartly raps the top of her brother’s head with a clean spoon.

“Set the table!” she commands imperiously. “Go!”

Jace comes up behind her as Alec grumbles but follows his sister’s orders anyway, examining the pot of curry over her shoulder. “You sure this is going to be edible?”

She shrugs, fighting to remain calm even in his proximity. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Jace chuckles slightly but moves away, and the line of her shoulders relax. Isabelle grabs one side of the pot and helps Clary take it off the fire and move the entire thing to the center of the table, before moving over to the pan still simmering on the stove and taking off the lid.

“Clary, do you think the rice is done?”

Clary moves over, as well, and pokes at the rice dubiously with the wrong end of her wooden spoon. “Um. Yes?”

“Excellent!”

The rice is not done. The rice is very undercooked, still hard in the center, the curry is much too spicy, and the carrots have turned to mush, but the four of them eat it all anyway. Isabelle and Jace keep up a steady conversation throughout about the most inane of things, and sometimes Alec joins in, but Clary eats as fast as possible and excuses herself before the others are even halfway done.

“Wait,” Jace calls, and there’s suddenly a hard hand around her wrist, stopping her. She halts automatically, looking towards him. “Let me take you out tonight.”

“I don’t think –”

“It’s the New Year, or didn’t you notice? Let me take you to Times Square and see the ball drop,” he suggests, and she notices that Isabelle and Alec are very, very quiet.

“I’ll think about it,” she manages, and practically sprints up the stairs.

* * *

Apparently, he’d taken that as a yes, because an hour after she’d showered and changed and settled into her bed with her sketchbook, he comes knocking on the door fully dressed for a cold night out.

“Come on, we’re missing the show,” he tells her, his eyes glittering, and she’s struck with a sudden sense of déjà vu.

“Jace, I can’t. My brother –”

“Isn’t here right now,” he interrupts, defiant and uncaring. “Besides, are you going to let that little overprotective bastard ruin your fun? The new year’s coming, and we’re not dead yet. Time to celebrate, yeah?”

“The war hasn’t started yet,” she says, but she knows she’s already lost. She shuts the door in his face to change, and marks her arms up with runes just in case before letting him take her hand, and lead her out of the safety of the Institute.

“Your adoptive siblings don’t approve of us,” she says, as they board the subway for Times Square, squeezing in beside thousands of excited mundanes.

“They’ve never approved of anything I’ve done, and falling in love with you is nowhere near the top of that list,” he says, and watches her for her reaction.

She doesn’t show any, because this is not news for her. There’s nothing she can do about it anyhow, either, so what’s the point? The war will come and go and her brother will take her far, far away, and she’ll never see Jace nor the Lightwoods nor hopefully any other Shadowhunters for the rest of the life.

This is the way her life will go, and there’s no point trying to change any of it.

“Maybe you should try not to, just in case,” she murmurs, too low even for his Shadowhunter hearing to pick up.

* * *

He kisses her, hard and furious and demanding, nothing like that first kiss in the training room, at the end of the countdown towards the New Year, and she doesn’t get to see the ball drop after all.

* * *

Isabelle comes in one night in the new year with bottles of nail polish, and invites herself into Clary’s room without knocking, shutting the door carefully and quietly after herself.

“Hello?” Clary asks, unsure how to react to this sudden entrance. She rests her paintbrush on top of her palette and sets it on the floor, wiping her paint-splattered hands on her old jeans before carefully covering up her canvas with the tarp.

“Girl time,” Isabelle barks at her, and when Clary only blinks at her incomprehensibly, she points towards the bathroom. “Bath. Now. I’ll wash your hair.”

Clary wants to say something about not being comfortable naked around practically strangers, but the strange steel in Isabelle’s eyes stop her and she meekly heads towards the bathroom. She sits on the lip of the tub, waiting for the water to fill, while Isabelle pulls out bottles of sweet-smelling bubble bath and spills it into the tub.

Isabelle washes her hair while Clary plays with the bubbles, and they do so in complete silence until Isabelle brings in a bottle of 1920s Vegas glamour red nail polish and proceeds to begin a manicure on her.

“About Jace,” Isabelle begins and Clary tenses. Isabelle notices, and she sighs. “Look, I know your brother’s probably given you a lot of crap about that. But I – I don’t care, really, as long as he keeps it wrapped when it’s not in his pants.”

Clary goes bright red, redder than the polish currently staining her fingernails, and Isabelle smirks slightly. “You’re good for Jace,” she continues. “I’ve never seen him so … relaxed. Laidback. And from what I’ve seen, he’s been good for you, too.”

“My brother would kill him if he ever found out,” Clary says.

Isabelle smiles, and finishes off the manicure with a flourish. “Then we’d better make sure he doesn’t. How do you feel about glitter on your toes?”

Clary is very skeptical about glitter on her toes, but she surrenders them to Isabelle anyway.

* * *

“We’re being mobilized,” is the first thing Alec says when he comes down to breakfast the next morning.

“Pass the ketchup, please,” Isabelle says, and Clary wordlessly hands it over from her side of the table.

“You seem to have mastered the art of scrambling eggs,” Jace congratulates Isabelle mildly.

Clary swallows half her cup of coffee in one go and almost burns her tongue off.

“Seriously?” Alec demands, annoyed. “We’re seriously going to act like this isn’t the most important news of our lives?”

“Coldplay has a new album coming out soon,” Isabelle remarks flippantly, and her brother throws up his arms and marches out of the kitchen.

* * *

They are escorted to Idris via a portal made by Magnus Bane, the High Warlock of Brooklyn, later that afternoon. Jace sends Clary a highly suspicious look, like “Couldn’t you have made the portal for us and saved us a whole lot of money?” but doesn’t say anything aloud, for which Clary is eternally grateful.

“What are we going to Idris for?” Isabelle asks.

“Father said something about a week of intensive training, and then we’ll be separated into battalions to prepare for the inevitable war,” Alec says tensely, and no one says a word about the threat hanging over all of them.

“Will I get to see my brother?” Clary asks, not really expecting a reply, and Jace pats her hand absentmindedly before pulling her through the portal after himself.

She does, actually. She gets a room down the hall from him, in the dorms where all the other teenage Shadowhunters old enough to get themselves killed in the war are put up temporarily before they get sent out on reconnaissance or full-out kill missions, but she escapes to her brother’s room most of the nights and doesn’t ever see Jace nor Isabelle nor, thankfully, Alec. She gets the feeling Alec doesn’t much like her, and especially disapproves of her relationship with Jace.

“I’m not going to let them make you fight in this war, little sister,” Jonathan tells her. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“It’s my fight as well as theirs,” she points out, knowing only logic and rationality will let her win this particular argument.

“I also made a promise to you,” Jonathan rebukes, the muscle in his jaw twitching. “I’ll keep you safe forever, if it’s the last thing I do.”

“What if I want to fight?” Clary asks.

Jonathan looks at her, and his eyes are more haunted than Clary’s ever seen them. “I’m not going to let them destroy you, Clary. You really, really don’t want any part of this war.”

“I’m also not going to let yourself killed because of me, brother.”

“Isn’t that what brothers do?”

Clary throws down her sketchbook and storms out of her brother’s room.

* * *

“Where do I go to get an audience with the Consul?”

Jace stares down at her. He’s wearing no shirt and pajama pants slung low on his hips, which is very distracting, but not quite distracting enough. “Clary,” he says. “What are you doing at my door in the middle of the night? People might get the wrong idea. People like me, for instance.”

Clary resists the urge to slap her sort-of boyfriend upside on the head. “I’m looking for an audience with the Consul,” she repeats, and Jace leans against the doorjamb to consider her.

“I’m not sure –”

“My brother’s planning something,” she interrupts. “Something that’ll keep me out of fighting in this war. I don’t think the Consul would be very happy about that, would he?”

“Why –”

“This is my fight, too, and I’ll be damned if I don’t get to chop off a few heads. I’m _justified_ ,” she emphasizes. “I want to be deployed. Now. Before my brother can come up with some inane plan to hide me on the edge of the earth until this entire storm blows over. And I have something the Consul might want very, very much.”

Jace only stares at her. “Er,” he says, very awkwardly, like he isn’t quite sure what he’s supposed to do with this strange turn of events, like that Clary is actually not as subservient to her brother like he’d thought she as.

Clary brings out her oldest, most treasured sketchbook from the inside of her coat and hands it to Jace. Jace eyes her suspiciously, but after a nod from her, gingerly opens the cover. He stares at the inside for a long, long while, flips a few pages, and when he finally looks back up at Clary, his eyes are almost frightened.

“What is this?”

“This is who I am,” Clary tells him, and braces herself for the inevitable fallout.

* * *

The Consul is very, very interested in granting her an audience the minute Jace brings the sketchbook to the Council’s attention.

* * *

“What are you doing, little sister?”

“I’m protecting you from yourself, brother.”

“I do not need your help.”

“Yet they need mine, and that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

* * *

She isn’t sent to fight. She hadn’t expected she’d be, because that’s not her talent. No, her talent is behind the scenes, and she is sent to live with Magnus Bane in preparation to craft wards all over the mortal world to prevent collateral damage, and to strengthen the ones around Idris, leaving only a single opening to defend.

“I hadn’t expected you,” Bane says, his voice betraying him even as he holds himself with a casual sort of grace, like he couldn’t care less that there’s a Shadowhunter, the daughter of Valentine, invading his rather swanky apartment.

“Yes, well, I’m good at surprising people these days,” Clary shrugs, and thinks about the way she’d left things with Jace – full of distrust and disgust and blame, and she couldn’t even expect a different reaction. She looks down at the scattering of fur all over the carpeted floor. “Do you have a pet?”

“His name is Chairman Meow. He’s not very fond of strangers.”

But apparently Clary has more than one surprise in store for the warlock today, because the minute the cat rounds the corner he immediately squishes up against Clary’s leg and begins to rub up and down, purring. “I’m good with animals?” she suggests, in reply to Bane’s single raised eyebrow.

Bane stares at her, and then down at his cat. Then he steps towards her, offering a hand, his green cat’s eyes slanted in curiosity. “I believe we haven’t yet been properly introduced. My name is Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn.”

“Clarissa Morgenstern, daughter of Valentine,” she says, and Bane shakes his head minutely.

“You shouldn’t define yourself by someone you’ve got no respect for, Clarissa. You’ll only lose yourself that way.”

“It’s who I am.”

“No, it’s not. It hasn’t been who you are for a long, long time.”

Clary considers this, and then takes Bane’s hand. “Call me Clary, Magnus Bane.”

The warlock actually smiles at this.

* * *

Magnus Bane isn’t actually a terrible roommate, and the presence of Chairman Meow can only help. When he learns she’s hopeless in the kitchen, he makes it his personal mission to teach her how to cook, in between the two of them reading every single spellbook in his collection, her recording down all the new runes she’s come up with, trading ideas on how to strengthen wards in preparation for the big day.

They’re in the middle of making ratatouille, one of Magnus’s favorite comfort dishes, when the signal comes in the form of a Portal opening up in the middle of his living room and Jace stepping out of it.

“Warlock,” he greets, without even a passing glance at Clary. “The war is starting.”

Magnus dries his hands leisurely on a tea towel, before turning to face Jace. “Very well, Shadowhunter. Come, Clary.”

Clary follows, and Jace disappears.

Maybe this is how it’s going to be from here on out, she thinks to herself, and stops in the middle of Magnus’s study, where the circle is already drawn. This is where Magnus will be pulsing out enough magic to power the sun, linked together with the magics of hundreds of other warlocks scattered around the globe. This is where Clary will be directing the magic to where it’s needed, into wards and runes and spells that will hopefully, hopefully be enough to overrun her father’s army.

Magnus blows out his breath, as he takes his seat in the center of the circle, his arms outstretched. Clary stands in front of him, one hand wrapped around his. “Ready?” he asks, and she nods.

* * *

Being a conductor of magic is not really the most comfortable job in the world, especially since her body isn’t actually built to withstand so much magic running through it at once. She holds on only through sheer tenacity and the images of destruction that run through her head, courtesy of the lines of magic intersecting and wrapping around the battle, sending real-time glimpses of the war straight into her brain and Magnus’s, and the hundreds of other warlocks interlocked with them.

She uses the magic to strengthen and protect and revive, killing and resuscitating in equal measure. She makes the wards around the city and Idris pulse alive with magic, keeping demons at bay, weakening them with enough light for the Shadowhunters to finish them off with relative ease. She pours every last bit of her soul into keeping everyone alive, keeping everyone safe, and she sees every single second of the battle through the strands of magic.

She sees her brother, at the front of the first battalion, his face twisted with disgust and hatred as he faces their father, clad in his leather gear. She weaves spell after spell, saturated with enough magic to keep the world running for centuries, around his body, healing every cut, strengthening every strike he makes. She drives her brother’s dagger deep into her father’s heart, through his gear and flesh bone, and twists it in until he groans in pain and falls to his knees, in front of the son he’d disregarded for so long. She fights her father, as well, however indirectly, because he’s still her father and she still loves him, but she understands now what it is to hate.

Hate is this man who has taken so much from her and her brother, and isn’t even content to stop there. Hate is this man who will use his children as an excuse to stage a war so large millions die for his pathetic cause. Hate is this man who understands only hate and not love, and Clary can only have herself to blame for that.

The war is almost anticlimactic in its bloodiness and violence, but when it’s over, it’s over, and Clary sinks down to sit on Magnus’s carpet, her legs weak and her head spinning. Magnus has already sprawled out, lifeless and exhausted, snoring into the floor.

She lifts a hand to her face and realizes she’s crying, and she finds she’s not entirely sure why.

* * *

“Clarissa.”

She flings herself into her brother’s embrace, and he wraps strong, solid arms around her, a silent promise to never again let go. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she blubbers, and she’d be embarrassed she was crying if not for the fact that relief is the only emotion she can feel at this moment.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about, little sister,” Jonathan says softly, smoothing down her hair, tangling his fingers in it like he’d used to when they were younger. “You only did what you thought to be right. I’d have done the same. We’re much too alike for my tastes, really.”

There’s a teasing quality to his voice, and she draws back to stare into his face. There’s gentleness in his eyes, a kindness that had replaced where steel ambition used to be. Perhaps her father was useful for more than killing, after all. “You forgive me?”

“Nothing to forgive,” Jonathan smiles, and kisses her lightly on the forehead. “Now, come on. You go pack your bags, and I’ll greet the elusive High Warlock and thank him for his good work during the war, and of course for taking care of you when I couldn’t.”

“Where are we going?”

“Someplace safe, little sister. You’ll never have to worry about war, ever again.”

This time around, she believes him.


	4. the crescendo of your heartbeat (my national anthem)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy happy endings.

**iv. the crescendo of your heartbeat (my national anthem)**

Clary ties her hair into a messy topknot on top of her head and sticks the lid on top of the wicker picnic basket, before padding over to the doorway of the kitchen and sticking her head out into the living room. “Jonathan?”

There’s a muffled crash and a muted curse, and Clary smiles. “Almost ready,” Jonathan calls back a moment later, and he appears in the half-open glass wall of the living room that leads out into the backyard. “Come on out, then, I’m starving.”

“Sodas or juice?”

“Wine?” her brother replies, too hopefully, and Clary sighs.

“Champagne,” she compromises, and thinks about it. “You know what, you take this basket outside and I’ll go down to the cellar. I think we still have that bottle of French rose champagne the neighbors gave us as a house-warming gift last month.”

“Rose champagne,” her brother repeats despairingly, but steps into the house and makes his way towards the kitchen to retrieve the picnic basket anyway. Clary flashes him a sweet smile and swings down the steps in the kitchen that lead to their little wine cellar. It had come built into the house itself when her brother had purchased it after the war, on the outskirts of Idris, far enough away from the city and the center of the battle as to not be bothered by reparations and people alike.

It’s been home for going on a month now, and every day is a study in peace and quiet, but Clary can’t help but feel there’s a little something missing from their lives anyway.

Sometimes she thinks back to her days in her father’s mansion, and finds she can’t recall much past hate and hurt and pain and watching her brother’s eyes die, each and every time he comes to her room seeking comfort. Sometimes she thinks back to her days in the Shadowhunters’ Institute, and finds she wouldn’t give up her memories of her time there for anything in the world.

It’s a strange and terrifying thought, and when she finds herself absentmindedly doodling in her sketchbook one day, she realizes she can still remember each line and twist of Jace’s face like he’s standing right there, in front of her. And maybe he is, really. Maybe she’ll never meet anyone like him again in her life, but that’s okay, because one was enough.

Magnus Bane drops by to visit sometimes. After she’d come out of her room in Magnus’s apartment bearing her bags, ready to go, she’d found him and her brother settled comfortably into the recliners in Magnus’s study, sharing a tumbler each of amber whiskey. They had become fast friends and, even with their move to Idris, Magnus makes it a point not to fall out of contact.

Clary just thinks that Magnus gets lonely, but it’s not as though she’s going to reject the company and presence of someone other than her brother.

“What time is Magnus coming, again?” Jonathan asks her, as she emerges from the cellar and heads out into the backyard of their little cottage. He’s already spread out a white linen across the grass, weighed down at the four corners with scavenged stones. The basket is sat on one edge, and he’s busy unpacking all the food onto the blanket.

“He’ll come when he feels like it,” Clary replies easily. She hands the bottle of champagne to Jonathan, who puts down the plate of peanut butter sandwiches he’s holding to unscrew the top.

“Glasses?”

“Whoops, forgot those. Maybe –”

A blast of swirling magic has them spinning around, and relaxing once they realize it’s  Portal. Magnus steps out easily, the magic dissolving back into nothing, and grins at them. “I’m just in time?”

“Conjure up some glasses for us, will you, we’re too lazy to go back inside for some,” Clary says, and Magnus groans long-sufferingly but does as told anyway. The three of them settle down onto the blanket as Jonathan pours out measures of the champagne into each flute, handing them around.

“Clary, my trip today is a little bit more business than pleasure,” Magnus begins, swirling the liquid around in his glass. “I’m actually on a job.”

Clary raises an eyebrow. “Then shouldn’t you actually be doing something worth your client’s money, rather than sit around drinking champagne with minors?”

“No, Clary, you don’t understand. I’ve been commissioned to find _you_.”

There’s a pause. Clary doesn’t know quite what to think, but apparently Jonathan does, because he snarls and leaps to his feet. “You’ve got no right, Magnus Bane.”

“I rather think that would be your sister’s decision, son of Valentine,” Magnus replies evenly, and the barb doesn’t even hurt anymore. It’s more a reminder of what they’ve lost, and what they’ve gained in that process.

“What?” Clary asks, her eyebrows drawing together. “I don’t – I mean – who actually paid you to find _me_ , Magnus?”

“Jace Wayland,” Magnus tells her, and there’s something very akin to sympathy in his eyes.

“Over my dead body, Magnus Bane,” Jonathan says, his tone glaciers and tempests flung together in snowstorms, and she’s never seen his eyes so hard before. “I don’t care if you’re the High Warlock of Brooklyn or not.”

“Hey, down, boy,” Magnus cautions. “It was a job, and I’ve fulfilled it. All the Shadowhunter asked me to do was find Clary. He never specified whether or not I was supposed to tell him where she is or not, and right now, I’m rather leaning towards _not_.”

“Sandwich, anybody?” Clary asks, and Jonathan shakes his head and stalks away. She looks helplessly at Magnus, who only sets his champagne flute down carefully and gets to his feet.

“I’ll leave him alone for a little while if I were you, Clary,” he warns, and vanishes into yet another Portal.

* * *

She tries her damndest to forget about Magnus’s visit, but she can’t help stewing over it the rest of the afternoon, and well into dinner. Finally, Jonathan puts down the leftovers from lunchtime’s failed picnic, and stares at her. “Spit it out, little sister.”

“I want to see him,” she blurts, and he doesn’t seem very surprised at all. She supposes she reads like an open book to him, the same way she’s learned to read Jace over the few glorious, peaceful months at the Institute.

But to her surprise, he doesn’t blow up. He doesn’t shut down and leave, doesn’t shoot down her every word, doesn’t start screaming expletives and ultimatums at her. Instead, he simply settles back in his chair, like he’s preparing for a particularly tough chess match. “We ran for a reason, Clary.”

“And Jace wasn’t one of them,” she shoots back. “You can’t protect me forever, Jonathan. Especially from threats that don’t even exist.”

“Shadowhunters exist,” Jonathan says mildly. “And as long as they exist, so will our persecution. You may think that the danger is over, now that the war is done. But there’s a reason we’re not living at the Institute, or even in the actual city of Idris. There’s a reason I’ve deliberately segregated us from the rest of them, Clary, and that’s because we will never truly be fellow Shadowhunters to them. We will forever be Morgensterns, the children of Valentine, and nobody’s about to forget that anytime soon.”

“Well,” Clary says, and stands from the table, preparing to leave. “If nobody’s going to forget that anytime soon, that’s because we’re the ones letting them, brother.”

* * *

She packs a bag that night, and leaves through the front door. Her brother is sitting at the kitchen table with the remnants of their dinner, drinking the rest of the leftover pink champagne, and he inclines his head at her when she pulls out her stele and starts carving a Portal into the front door.

“Good luck, little sister,” he says, and salutes her with his glass.

And maybe he understands more than she’d given him credit before, because this is a much more final goodbye than she’d hoped for.

“Goodbye, brother,” she says, and steps through the Portal.

It’s a little bit jarring, the feeling of déjà vu as she lands in New York City, but there are no people around. Time in Idris moves a little differently to time in New York, but as far as she can tell, it’s still nightfall, and there are no people around to witness her abrupt fall out of a magical swirling pit of energy. She gets to her feet, and squints at the layered darkness that surrounds her, even with the constant light of the city illuminating her way.

It’s a good thing Jace had taken around the city so much, and that she’d explored quite a bit of it herself, because otherwise she’d have been completely lost. Portals she might be able to create without much fuss, but she doesn’t have the aim Magnus has with his, and she can only land somewhere within the vicinity of her desired location.

If her guess is right, she’s somewhere in Central Park, and if that tree is there, then the Institute must be the other way, which means –

Clary starts walking, the bag heavy on her shoulder, her heartbeat quickening with every step she takes. Her senses are all on high alert, looking out for Shadowhunters and demons alike, but she hardly takes a moment to breathe a sigh of relief when she encounters the looming gates of the church that passes as the Institute.

Instead, she musters up all the courage she has and heads up the stairs, heading in through the front room and following the spilled light on the floor and chatter of voices through to the kitchen. The distinct scent of Chinese takeaway is hanging in the air, and the moment she stops in front of the entrance to the kitchen, she feels everyone stop and stare, the abrupt silence almost too loud.

She swallows, and focuses her eyes on the one person that matters.

“Magnus said you were looking for me,” she says, and all hell breaks loose.

* * *

Luckily, Maryse and Robert are still in Idris on business, so there is no one to demand her immediate return to the only figure of relative authority in her life. Instead, there is just Alec’s silent accusing glare, Isabelle’s perpetual, rapid-fire questions, and Jace’s bewildered stare.

“You were the one who hired a stupid warlock to find me,” she protests, when it’s clear Jace is far too shocked to attempt any real words. “I at least thought you might be happy to see me.”

“We are,” Isabelle assures her hastily, and after a quick glance at her adoptive brother, quickly adds, “and he is, as well, obviously. Come on, let’s go get you set up back in your old room. You’re staying for a while, aren’t you?”

“My brother apparently believes I’m not coming back.”

Isabelle pauses. “Good thing or bad thing?”

“Izzy,” Jace interrupts quietly, and everyone immediately shuts up and turns to him, except Clary, who keeps her back to him out of sheer defiance. Sure, she hadn’t exactly been expecting a warm welcome, but she’d thought ….

Well, of course, none of that matters now.

“Clary, would you take a walk with me?”

Clary turns, then, and narrows her eyes at Jace, who meets her scrutinizing stare with an even one of his own steadily. “Fine,” she says, and Isabelle takes her bag from her without a word.

* * *

She’s not dressed for the weather, exactly, having left most of her thicker winter coats back in Idris out of the intent to pack light. Still, she refuses to shiver when Jace takes her on a roundabout route around the city back towards Central Park, even as she sticks her hands deep into her pockets and clenches her jaw tight to keep her teeth from chattering.

Jace isn’t fooled, though, and she hadn’t expected him to be. He glances down at her, still with that half-confused expression like he can’t quite believe she’s there in front of him, and asks, “Are you cold?”

“No,” Clary says resolutely, and Jace stares at her for a long while before nodding and turning back to face front.

“Alright, then.”

“Why did you send Magnus Bane after me?” she asks finally, when it’s becoming clear he’s not going to initiate the conversation.

Jace shrugs. “I wanted to find you.”

“Not good enough.”

“I wanted to see you.”

“For what?” she demands, exasperated. Jace had never been so reticent before; he’d always been full of quips and witty comebacks and sarcasm.

“I wanted to apologize,” he blurts, and stops suddenly beneath a streetlight, so suddenly Clary has to turn around and backtrack to face him. His expression is unreadable save for the single sheen of desperation coating his every word, and Clary doesn’t have to reach far to find his words believable.

“Because you ditched me the moment I seemed to be … how do I put this … not a Shadowhunter?”

A flicker of a smile ghosts across his lips. “We generally are a rather bigoted bunch,” he agrees easily. “Look at how we treat Downworlders. Hell, look at how we treat mundanes. We act like they’re scum at the bottom of our shoes, but they’re not.”

“You’ve just been brought up to think that way,” Clary nods. “And we haven’t.”

The smile widens, just a little bit. “You and your brother probably have the most unbiased view of the world out of all of our kind,” Jace agrees. “So I apologize, for that. For … ditching you, as you phrased it. I was confused, and shocked, and it was an automatic sort of thing, but that shouldn’t excuse anything.”

“Is that the only reason you hired Magnus?” she asks. “Because apology accepted and all, but I’ve worked with Magnus. I know his fees. Your entire bank account, and then some, is probably decimated by now.”

Jace shakes his head, his blond hair glinting in the dim light. “No, that’s not the entire reason I hired Magnus.”

“Then what’s the second?” she prompts, intrigued, and he leans forward and presses his lips against hers, sweet and soft and everything she needs him to be.

“This. The second reason was that so I could do this.”

“Maybe you should get your money’s worth and do it again,” she suggests, and he laughs aloud.

 

**fin.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> send me prompts at c-majorchords on tumblr.


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